New One Data Wire Serial Bus for Distributed Sensor Arrays

This paper presents a one data wire communication protocol, developed by Sensichips s.r.l., for multi-sensor readout applications with advantages in transfer efficiency and readout speed over currently used protocols. The protocol has been named Sensibus, it is a multi-drop single master multiple slaves type asynchronous protocol, and takes some features of standard serial data buses, improving the addressing and data transfer efficiency aspects. It allows multiple real-time writings, readings and it supports beam-forming applications through sensor level programmatic delays. In the case of sensor arrays, i.e. ultrasonic sensing, the ability to perform beam-forming and beam-stearing provides a better detection in a preferential spatial direction through precise and accurately programmable delays. The Sensibus was then implemented on a cable and used for gas measurements with distributed sensors to demonstrate its actual effectiveness. This work opens the door to new applications for distributed sensing, enabling fast measurements for real-time tasks: the simplicity of the protocol makes it easily implementable and low cost, ideal for what is required by IoT standards.